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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28602324">A Daughter</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MabelLover/pseuds/MabelLover'>MabelLover</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, Female Percy Weasley, Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 07:56:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,699</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28602324</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MabelLover/pseuds/MabelLover</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Molly always wanted a girl. And Arthur, well, Arthur thought that after they got their little girl there was no point in having more children."</p>
<p>Or, Percy Weasley is born a girl and likes to count (except this time there is someone around to notice and hear).</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Penelope Clearwater/Percy Weasley</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Autistic Girls/Women Gift Exchange</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Persis Weasley was a quiet, serious child ever since she was born. Molly had thought it was fortunate, after her two loud, rambunctious sons, to have a quiet and feminine daughter like she’d always wanted to. Someone whose hair she could braid and someone to teach knitting to, with enough patience to stay still while Molly fitted hand-me-downs from the neighbourhood Muggles. Percy took to their life of poverty with the grace of a queen, always knowing that she couldn’t ask for more than what she already had. Molly had to probe her sometimes, ask her what she wanted, tell her that it could be anything – did she want a broom? They could always make the budget a bit tighter that month, Arthur could always do some extra hours of work.  Percy always said that she didn’t need anything, that something cheap was fine for her birthday, that her clothes were fine. She counted her coins and made notes in her diary and always seemed to have some extra Knuts in her pockets in the few times that Molly miscalculated her savings when out for groceries.</p>
<p>Money wasn’t the only thing that Percy counted. She counted the pretty rocks in her collection and how many beans fit in a jar and had a fascination with cauldron thicknesses after reading in the Daily Prophet that they could be dangerous if not thick enough. Arthur found her many times counting the wires and batteries he kept stored in the garage with the car, and he let her help him while he tinkered, Percy handing him the tools and him explaining how things worked (or how he thought they worked, but she was just a child and didn’t know better than to think her father always knew everything). The last time Fabian and Gideon stopped by before they died in the War, they laughed as Percy counted each and every individual strand of hair in their heads, cataloguing the numbers in her little notebook.</p>
<p>Percy liked to read the business section in the Daily Prophet, jolting down the developments in spare pieces of parchment and imagining how they’d change. She’d been doing that ever since they visited Stephen, Molly’s Squib cousin, one time when she was six. She’d squirreled away from the adults with Bill and Charlie, and when they found them later, the boys had their noses in a Muggle book about a short man and a ring and Percy had finished the calculations that Stephen had been running through. He had been surprised, claiming that the level of mathematical prowess she had displayed was impressive for her age, and gifted her a small handbook on accounting.</p>
<p>(Personally, Molly didn’t like the idea of Percy being interested in accounting. It was so utterly <em>Muggle</em>, not that there was anything wrong with it, of course, but the idea that her daughter could be more Muggle than witch was... unsettling. Stephen had suffered so much from his lack of magic; Molly didn’t want her child to live through the same.)</p>
<p>Percy learned to read and count from her brothers, Bill already six when she was born and Charlie just four. They used to drag her around as a toddler, trying to make her more like them. It hadn’t worked, and Percy remained quiet and out of sight, but she occasionally indulged them in a Quidditch game. She wasn’t anything special, not like Charlie, but she made a decent job at a chaser. Arthur had asked his brothers for their old brooms, and cosied up to a few cousins who could give him some spare change to buy the cheapest Cleansweep that flew somewhat decently, and played with his children every Saturday, Molly sitting on the garden, occasionally stunning a gnome. Percy was the only one who kept track of the score, as the boys were much too busy trying to one-up each other, and in the end, she always made sure to save some biscuits for the winning team. In the rare cases that she won, the boys ruffled her hair, making some strands stick out from her braid. Percy always responded to the affection with an awkward peck on the cheek.</p>
<p>The year that Charlie started Hogwarts, when Molly took Percy to Gringotts for the first time to exchange Galleons to Muggle money, the girl looked at Rasnook, the Goblin in question, and asked how much a Galleon was worth. She seemed shocked by the answer, and Molly heard her muttering furiously during the rest of the trip, her hands twitching as if longing for her quill and notebook. Percy perused the second-hand bookshop with feigned interest, and while anyone else could be fooled, Molly knew that she was counting under her breath. She saw her daughter look on when Molly had to tell Charlie that they couldn’t buy him an owl, it was too expensive, they could send Scabbers instead, and Hogwarts had owls for the students to use anyways. Charlie nodded forlornly, muttering about treats for Scabbers, and Percy reached into the pocket of her skirt and placed a few coins on his hand.</p>
<p>When they went back to the Burrow, Percy turned the house upside down. She found every coin she could, counting them over and over, making calculations with her accounting book sprawled on the floor. Molly despaired over her dirty dresses, over her undone braids, and made her sit still to retie them properly. The next day, Percy woke up with short hair, her braid on the floor and faint traces of magic left. Arthur took a day off to celebrate her first bout of accidental magic and levelled the cut with his wand.</p>
<p>With both Bill and Charlie off to Hogwarts, Molly found herself in a house not so cluttered and not so loud. Percy read her accounting book in the corner and counted her coins and Arthur left for the Ministry and tinkered in the garage and Molly cooked and cleaned and degnomed the garden and tried to budget their money as best as they could. Everything was more expensive with two children at school, even with the money that Hogwarts offered, and there was still Christmas sweaters to prepare and Pandora Lovegood needed help with her sweet Luna when she was working. They were stretched thin, even more than usual, and Molly wondered how much worse it could have been if Percy had been a son instead of a daughter.</p>
<p>(Molly always wanted a girl. And Arthur, well, Arthur thought that after they got their little girl there was no point in having more children. But if she hadn’t been born, Molly knew they’d try again and again and again…)</p>
<p>With Bill and Charlie returned, Summer vacation ready to begin, Percy began to go to the garage with Arthur every day, experimenting with coins and spells and what seemed to Molly a Muggle laboratory oven. Arthur guaranteed that he hadn’t stolen it from anywhere (although he also said that he didn’t do illegal alterations on the car and Molly was pretty sure that he had made the Ford Anglia turn invisible at some point). The boys tried to drag Percy out of the garage, or out of her room, with little success, and deemed it another one of her fancies that occasionally consumed her life. They dealt with it the way they knew how to: they slid a plate of biscuits under her door and knocked at night to remind her to sleep and Bill tried to find a book on accounting in Ottery St Catchpole, to no success and a lot of confusion of the locals who tried to figure out why exactly a twelve-year-old wanted to know about the subject.</p>
<p>As the Summer progressed, Molly started to prepare to see her money shrink, for the books and the robes and all the supplies needed. But the day before going to Diagon Alley, Percy grabbed her sleeve and told her that there was something she needed to see, and she brought out her notebook.</p>
<p>“A Galleon is made of gold,” the child said, tone serious and face grave, “and the amount of gold in a Galleon is more valuable to Muggles than the Galleon itself.”</p>
<p>And she showed Molly how they could melt the Galleon and sell the gold for more money, and exchange the money to Galleons and melt them to make more money, like a never-ending vicious cycle. The Muggle oven had readied samples and Percy had asked how much they would give for it in the village when they went out and Molly needed the money, they all did. She waited. When Arthur came back at night, she pulled him aside and they went through the laws and the decrees and found that there was nothing about this. Not even a mention. Would it be wrong, if they did it, took advantage of a system that never accounted for it?</p>
<p>But Charlie had wanted an owl and Bill had asked for a new wand other than the one his great-uncle had used and Percy never felt comfortable asking for anything that she wanted. And Molly was tired of worrying about money, and budgeting, and this was a way out. Just a bit of money was enough.</p>
<p>That year, Charlie got new robes that fit properly and the boys got a new owl and Molly finally managed to see a zoologist about Errol’s flying problems. And Percy, sweet Percy, finally asked for something, a book of potions. The children were happy and Arthur managed to loosen up a little and Molly, for the first time in a long time, didn’t feel her wallet’s weight alarmingly drop.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>This hadn’t been expected. Every Weasley had been sorted in Gryffindor for a hundred years, just like every Weasley had red hair and freckles and hand-me-down robes. Although, the more recent Weasleys wore new, if not a little low-quality, well-fitted robes, and their shoes were new and clean, and their quills weren’t blunt from years of use. Bill Weasley had all the new books on curses and Charlie Weasley had a Cleansweep Six and a Quidditch career to match.</p>
<p>Persis Weasley was a Slytherin.</p>
<p>She’d been a Hatstall – Penelope liked to count this kinds of things, the time it took to go to one place to another, how long it took to do something, how many facts she could memorize in an hour. Her life was ephemeral, constantly moving, and she liked it that way, as it reminded her to keep learning, keep improving. Her mother, back when she’d been alive and not a slab of marble on a cemetery, had worked in the Department of Mysteries, with the connection between time and magic, and how much could change in just a tiny bit of time. Penelope wanted to study it too, to follow in her footsteps.</p>
<p>Persis didn’t follow any footsteps. Her ground was entirely new, and Penelope wanted to see where it went, what turns the girl would face. The Slytherins would sneer at her and she would smile, a cutting remark at the edge of her tongue.</p>
<p>She was quiet, Persis, during and outside of class, but her wandwork was consistent and good, and her essays were well-organized, and the Ravenclaws lamented not having her in their House, for all the points that Persis won for her good work. The Professors enjoyed having her in class, for all her non-disruptiveness so different from her brothers, and Penelope could even swear that Snape answered non-sarcastically that one time that the Slytherin stayed behind to ask him about cauldron thickness and other safety measures in Potions. The Ravenclaws lamented and wondered how she hadn’t become one of them, and Penelope stayed quiet, for she knew and she had seen.</p>
<p>She had seen how good Persis was at misdirection, at drawing the attention away from her and how to stay unnoticed. She had seen how good she was at making a plan and succeeding, at making sure that no one would ever jinx her again while never being caught. She had seen how she read the Daily Prophet every morning and jotted down notes and counted to herself under her breath.</p>
<p>Penelope saw and grew, and she was thirteen when she noticed how Persis’ short hair brought out her eyes, and she watched Persis move in flying class, elegant as an eagle, even when she almost fell over her broom. And she jotted down every correct answer that Persis gave in class, and asked for tutoring from her. Every week, she’d nearly die from being so close to her.</p>
<p>“She’ll be a Prefect, for sure!” the Ravenclaws said, and Penelope found herself looking at herself and decided that she would be too. She studied and studied and collaborated with the Prefect and asked for extra credit and when Fifth Year rolled around a badge came with the letter and she knew she’d done it.</p>
<p>(The first time they kissed, Penelope had gathered the courage to ask Persis out to Hogsmeade. It tasted like butterbeer and skin and they butted their noses. The second time it went a little bit better. Penelope tried to count the time it lasted. She lost count.)</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Harry stuck by the red-haired girl and woman that helped him get to the Platform. They didn’t seem to mind – the woman, Mrs Weasley, fussed a bit over him, asking if he was hungry or if he needed something, and he awkwardly said no, unaccustomed to being fussed over. The girl, whose badge pinned on her robes apparently meant she was a Prefect, told him to call her Percy. She was in Slytherin, and Hagrid’s words came to him, but she seemed so <em>nice</em>, not at all like that kid from Madam Malkin’s. They sat in a compartment together for a while, waiting for the train to begin moving, and Harry asked her about the Houses.</p>
<p>“Slytherin’s alright,” it was all she said about her own.</p>
<p>After the Hogwarts Express took off, she excused herself, saying that she had to go to the Prefect’s compartment, and wished him luck.</p>
<p>“By the way, Harry,” she pointed to him, “you might want to cover the scar.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Draco Malfoy was a git, and one that acted like he owned the place. Percy had no patience for people like him, self-entitled idiots who thought themselves special for whatever reason. She’d put down a lot of them during these years, people who antagonized her and people who fought her for the Prefect badge. She counted everything she could about them – their money, their number of robes, their habits, their talks – everything was quantifiable somehow, analyzed, and used against them. She didn’t need her wand seldom on very specific situations, and her work was less traceable this way.</p>
<p>Quirrel was another hurdle of his own. Not quite incompetent, not quite competent, and a bit too twitchy to be natural. He said his turban was a gift from an African prince but anyone who had access to Muggle books could tell that the prince didn’t exist. It smelled weird, and Professor Trelawney had more than once crossed to the other side of the corridor just to avoid him.</p>
<p>(Say what you will about Sybil Trelawney, but Percy obsessively documents things. The woman has been right quite frequently, and her gut feelings should be trusted more than they are.)</p>
<p>In Divination class, she made a passing comment about chess to Penelope, and Percy brought her old set to the Great Hall and suggested a timer. Penelope would cast it, Percy would count the points. It ended in a draw, and so did the next one, and finally Penelope won. She celebrated with a muffin and a discreet kiss from Percy on her little finger.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>“The Philosopher’s Stone! Someone’s going to steal it!”</p>
<p>Percy stopped dead on her tracks when passing by McGonagall’s office. The door cracked open just a little bit, she could see Potter and Granger. The first-year Gryffindors seemed afraid and disappointed when the Professor gave her final verdict and left the room, exchanging glances all the way. Percy quickly hid behind a column, making sure to not make any noise as the children talked with each other.</p>
<p>“Then we go tonight,” Harry declared.</p>
<p>She couldn’t stop herself. “Mind if I help?”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Percy stayed behind in the room of flying keys to help charm them out of Penelope and the kids’ way. She sat down on the floor, wand up and holding the magical bubble she’d created, waiting. She counted, as she always did when feeling overwhelmed with worry.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Hermione was alright. Harry needed some hospitalization after facing Quirrelmort, as dubbed by Penelope, who also needed a night on the Infirmary (apparently puns were a common way to show off in Ravenclaw; Percy gagged). The whole school knew by now of Harry’s showdown with Quirrel, but Percy asked Professor Dumbledore to keep quiet about herself. He nodded, smiling. “Of course, Miss Weasley.”</p>
<p>Slytherin gossiped rather heavily about the event. Malfoy loudly complained about Potter not being expelled and Percy took him aside to give him a lesson on subtlety or the lack thereof. Parkinson looked shocked while Nott and Zabini laughed amongst themselves. The git kept his mouth shut for the rest of the week, and managed to give only a sour face when Gryffindor won the House Cup with last minute points.</p>
<p>Not that Percy wasn’t salty about that, but it would make some people less insufferable the following year.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Two hours – that was how long it took for Percy to realise there was a book she hadn’t purchased in her cauldron. Penelope picked it up and opened it, finding only blank pages. “Whoever this T. M. Riddle was, they certainly didn’t write a lot.”</p>
<p>Percy hummed. She felt the paper between her fingers. Good quality. “Might use it for notes.”</p>
<p>On the first day of school, she wrote in the first page <em>Property of P. M. Weasley</em>.</p>
<p><em>Hello, P. M. Weasley</em>, it responded, the handwriting even and neat. <em>My name is Tom Riddle.</em> <em>How did you come across my diary?</em></p>
<p>Advice from her mother came to Percy’s mind, and she ran to the Headmaster’s office.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Trying to evaluate possible future Ministry employees while a Death Eater was on the run and possibly trying to get to Hogwarts was annoying and stressful. At every corner, there was someone questioning the Ministry’s competence and Minister Fudge’s capabilities, and children, already disgusting as usual, parrot their parents’ opinions left and right. A few of those children were a bit less disgusting – those from proper families, raised correctly and with good breeding. Other were clearly told to suck up their way, trying to compensate their lack of connections and education.</p>
<p>Persis Weasley was an oddity of a blood traitor. Rosemary Fawley couldn’t even decide if she was one – she had been sorted into Slytherin and as far as anyone knew was only around purebloods and halfbloods with a long wizarding lineage. Prefect, Head Girl, rumoured to have some kind of dirt on every Slytherin family. The girl sat down, her posture impeccable, and Rosemary asked what she wanted to do in the Ministry.</p>
<p>“I’d like to work under the Minister, overseeing the budgets and such. I’ve always had a knack for numbers.”</p>
<p>Rosemary checked her files. The girl had indeed and O in Arithmancy, like many of their best budgeteers. But it still felt too small, like it lacked ambition. Rosemary had too been a Slytherin, she too had the fire of this girl, before it’d been snuffed out by life, before she’d been forced to aim a little lower. Had Persis Weasley been forced too?</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Penelope applied to the Department of Mysteries and was accepted. Percy applied to the Budget and Funds Office and was accepted. They received their notices and joined their funds to buy a small flat in London.</p>
<p>Percy took Penelope to the Burrow and Molly hugged them both. Charlie owled, his letter teasing and warm, and Bill managed to Floo over for the weekend to get to know his future sister-in-law. Arthur despaired over all the plans that Molly was already making, and let out a relieved sigh once the girls said that they didn’t plan on getting married just yet.</p>
<p>Penelope took Percy to her father’s house. It was pleasant for exactly five minutes before he realised what they were telling him and shut the door on their faces.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Of course</em> it had to be when Percy joined the Office that they hosted the Triwizard Tournament. Percy liked to budget and make cuts and make sure everything lines up, but she didn’t like this kind of stress. She didn’t like Bagman knocking every day asking for something else. She didn’t like money disappearing to rabbit holes leading nowhere and ending up in the pockets of politicians. But there was nothing she could do without being noticed.</p>
<p>Instead, she wrote reports on cauldron thicknesses and how the ones that the Ministry had been buying were dangerously thin. Crouch came up to her and asked if she could become his assistant for the time being, just while he was swamped with work for the Tournament. He had connections, and Percy could do with those, and that was how she found herself on Hogwarts grounds.</p>
<p>It wasn’t very taxing writing the reports that Crouch asked (she felt that she was cheating out of work, what with all her colleagues drowning in paperwork), and she managed to keep an eye out for Harry, who clearly hadn’t put his name in the Goblet of Fire, Merlin’s pants. The kid was floundering like a newborn faun trying to walk, and Percy felt somewhat sorry for not helping him. She compensated with extra points in the Second Task, with Crouch still ill. Might have been favouritism, but it was good being able to be unsubtle for once.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Albus held her back at the end, the mess still uncleaned, Amos Diggory still weeping somewhere inside the castle. He took her to his office, and asked for her help, for her dedication and patience and intelligence and, above all, for her accounting.</p>
<p>Percy said yes.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>As an autistic person, it fascinates me how Percy Weasley works: hardworking, intelligent, yet rigid and stubborn. I couldn't help but project myself a little bit.<br/>On the other hand, I've been trying to write this kind of premise before - one of the Weasleys is a girl and so Molly and Arthur stop having children. I toyed with the twins being girls, or Ron, but it never seemed to fit (or perhaps I just couldn't write it well enough). Bill and Charlie were always too old, and I don't have the patience to play and try to fit an AU around Hogwarts Mystery. Percy seemed the best fit, and I'll try to make this work.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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